Three Sundays Still to Enjoy Sales Bounce from News of the World Closure

Scots Sunday newspapers, the Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday, are two of just three Sunday newspapers to register a drop in sales in Scotland compared to this time last year.

Says the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Sunday Herald’s sales in Scotland last month stood at 31,241, down 12,547 copies on 12 months previously.

Its 28.6 per cent year-on-year drop outstripped the 6.5 per cent fall felt by its Edinburgh-based rival, Scotland on Sunday, which saw numbers decrease by 3,699 between last month and August last year. SoS's average sale last month was 53,420.

During July, SoS's average stood at 46,327, while the Sunday Herald's was 32,375.

The pair were joined only by The Sunday Times – down 2,351 in the last year, from 63,850, or 3.7 per cent year-on-year – while all of the remaining titles enjoyed a circulation boost as the effect of the News of the World closure, in early July, continues to reverberate throughout the Sunday newspaper market.

Scotland’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Sunday Mail, found itself up 6.5 per cent on this time last year as copies north of the Border reached 387,383, while the Daily Star Sunday in Scotland, Sunday Mirror and The People all recorded rises of more than 100 per cent in the past 12 months.

Trinity Mirror-owned pair, the Mirror and The People, saw their August average circulation in Scotland rest at 45,926 and 30,645 respectively – up 101.3 per cent and 110.9 per cent on this time last year.

The Daily Star Sunday similarly recorded a year-on-year rise of 110.9 per cent as circulation jumped from 29,379 to 61,952 in the space of 12 months.

As for Scotland's two biggest-selling daily newspapers, The Scottish Sun and the Daily Record, both remain down, year-on-year. The former had an average August sale in Scotland of 319,597 – down 7.1 per cent on 2010 – while rival, the Record, stood at 278,982, down 7.2 per cent.